And there's a cheat to making an upside down exclamation mark, if you're ever trying to do that in Spanish -- just use the lower case version of the 9th letter of the alphabet (you know, the one between "h" and "j').

And there's a cheat to making an upside down exclamation mark, if you're ever trying to do that in Spanish -- just use the lower case version of the 9th letter of the alphabet (you know, the one between "h" and "j').

Looks like somebody will soon be getting slapped with a lawsuit from Apple legal goons.

And there's a cheat to making an upside down exclamation mark, if you're ever trying to do that in Spanish -- just use the lower case version of the 9th letter of the alphabet (you know, the one between "h" and "j').

Looks like somebody will soon be getting slapped with a lawsuit from Apple legal goons.

¡Besides, here's how to do a real upside-down exclamation mark!

Greylight:Why not just use an interobang like an Englishman instead of a dirty foreigner?!

Actually, you don't need to buy a Spanish keyboard, there's a "US International" keyboard layout that you can use for the accent marks and oddball punctuation. Right-Alt+1 will give you the inverted exclamation point¡

Those of us who read sentences as a whole (that is, people with beyond a third-grade reading level) can tell that a sentence is a question without needing the question mark at the beginning. And this does nothing to help with speech. Perhaps we should adopt question signals as some languages have, to indicate that a sentence is a question. Those signals usually come at the beginning of a sentence as well.

ElStreak:Greylight: Much like the Spanish I got excited first, then read the article. I prefer my interobang still, filthy forien punctuation can stay clear of my pristine English squiggles!

As can pristine English spelling, it would seem.

The use of the inverted beginning punctuation is on its way out in South America. If a language that has it doesn't seem to feel a pressing need to keep it, why does a language that doesn't have it need it?

Churchill2004:Spanish has a greater need to disambiguate questions from statements, because they're often phrased identically. In English we do that with word order (Do you like it? vs. You do like it.)

ciberido:ElStreak: Greylight: Much like the Spanish I got excited first, then read the article. I prefer my interobang still, filthy forien punctuation can stay clear of my pristine English squiggles!

As can pristine English spelling, it would seem.

The use of the inverted beginning punctuation is on its way out in South America. If a language that has it doesn't seem to feel a pressing need to keep it, why does a language that doesn't have it need it?

It was never an organic part of the language. developed ground-up from usage. It was decreed by the Royal Academy or some such in the 1700s by fiat, took a good century to catch on, and there are plenty of places where it never caught on. Using it in the era of keyboard communication is just a pain in the ass- same way we lost different quotation marks for opening and closing a quote.

doyner:Churchill2004: Spanish has a greater need to disambiguate questions from statements, because they're often phrased identically. In English we do that with word order (Do you like it? vs. You do like it.)

Churchill2004:Spanish has a greater need to disambiguate questions from statements, because they're often phrased identically. In English we do that with word order (Do you like it? vs. You do like it.)

See, people... this guy is doing it right. No need to write two farking pages to make an argument. Just a clear explanation in two sentences.